- You can only stay on
the sidelines for so long. These are unprecedented times, and it seems like every day, the rule of law is being
eroded little by little. And frankly I'm sick of it. So I'm going to do something about it. I'm suing the White House, the CIA, the Department of Justice
and a whole bunch of others. This is not a joke. This is actually happening. Let me give you some background. You might recall that back in January, President Trump was impeached and he was facing a trial in the Senate. - Article one is adopted. (gavel thumping) (senators clapping) - And one of the people
that seem to have a lot to say about the particular
charges that were levied against the President, was former National Security
Advisor John Bolton. And in what can only be described as an act of pure cowardice, John Bolton refused to
testify before the Senate. And instead decided to write
a book with his observations and presumably the things that
he would have testified to at the Senate trial of the President. - I didn't think the Democrats had the wit or the political
understanding or the reach. - Now that's problematic for a whole host of legal and moral reasons. But one of the legal issues is that, as a former National Security Advisor, in order to publish a book,
Bolton had to go through an onerous pre-publication review process. During the course of that
review process, the government would likely take out a
whole bunch of information that it doesn't want to be published. And I didn't trust the government to do that pre-publication
review and censoring of John Bolton's book in good faith. Under normal circumstances, but
doubly so when we're talking about things that strike at
the heart of our democracy and the President's impeachment trial. So back in February, I
filed some FOIA requests against the National Security Council, the CIA, the Department of Defense, the Department of Justice,
the Department of State, basically anyone that would
have possibly gotten a copy of John Bolton's book and had
something to say about it. Now, normally under this review process, the government can simply say
that this portion of the book, is classified and therefore
it cannot be published and there's some back and forth. But there's nothing that
forces the government to really provide
reasoning for the demands that they're making and
in some circumstances, the government doesn't even need to claim that the things are classified just that they are prohibited
from being disclosed. So who knows what they
prevented Bolton from saying? So the point of Legal Eagles
FOIA requests was to obtain, or at least force the
government to properly process these redactions under FOIA. Information that the
government was attempting to prevent John Bolton from
publishing in his book. And we also sought to obtain information about what process the
government was using. Were there any political considerations in terms of preventing John Bolton from saying certain things? And did the government prevent him from saying unclassified information that he had a right to say, because it was politically damaging. Not surprisingly, the
government has stonewalled our FOIA requests. So, we're filing suit. We are suing the government,
the White House, the CIA, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense,
the Department of State, and a whole host of other
federal government agencies to find out what they prevented
John Bolton from saying. The goals are simple. To force the government to
disclose the information that it didn't want John Bolton
to disclose to the public. To either force them to
un-classify the information, to admit that it was never
classified in the first place and at the bare minimum
to force them to explain why and how that information is classified and why it cannot see the light of day. This is actually what
happened when Jason Leopold of Buzzfeed filed a FOIA request and eventually a lawsuit to
enforce that FOIA request for the original Mueller Report. We got a lot more information
about the vague redactions that the DOJ had actually done to the initial release
of the Mueller Report. And we found out that a
lot of those redactions were completely improper. And because I don't necessarily
trust the government to have conducted a
good faith investigation in this particular case. We also want the correspondence, to know who was making this decision, why these decisions were made. And as I covered in my other video on the whole John Bolton case, the timeline doesn't line up here. Because allegedly, one of
the government employees, cleared John Bolton's
entire book for publication only to have that decision
changed at the last minute, by a political appointee. A political appointee who
had basically zero training in terms of over-classification. It's entirely possible that
this whole process is rife with political machinations
designed to hide the white house from
unflattering information that should see the light of day. So because the government
has stonewalled our requests, we're filing suit. We're going to ask a federal
judge to enforce our demands, to make sure that the
government complies with them and to disclose this information. This is not a stunt. This is not a joke. We are actually filing a federal lawsuit to enforce our FOIA requests
as we are entitled to do. And like any good lawyer,
I have teamed up with some of the best National
Security lawyers in the country. Specifically in this case, I am working with the
National Security Counselors, which is a nonprofit organization. And their executive
director, Kel McClanahan, who has more experience with FOIA requests and FOIA litigation than
probably anyone else. And we're committed to
taking this to the mat. We want people to be actively engaged, and we want people to have the information that is important about their government. Democracy only works when
the people are informed and have access to the information that is critically important. And if the Senate isn't
going to give the president a fair trial, when it
comes to impeachment, then the only check on Executive power is at the ballot box. - The primary way that
we reign presidents in is not through impeachment,
it's through elections. - And that only works when people have the
necessary information, including the information
that the government doesn't want its citizens to have. So this will be the first
in a series of videos that chronicles the adventures of suing the federal government
to disclose information that probably should have been
disclosed in the first place. This would not be possible without the help of the
National Security Counselors. There's a link in the
description to be able to donate to the National Security Counselors, which is a 501(c)(3), so your
donation is tax deductible. And it would mean the world to us, if you would consider
donating to the cause because lawyers and
litigation are expensive and we are committed to taking this thing as far as it needs to go. Because we believe that
this cause is just, and no one else is going to do it. And any donations made above
the cost of this litigation will go towards the other charitable work that the National Security Counselors do. Which includes but isn't limited to, representing whistle-blowers, representing journalists in FOIA requests, suing to strike down
anti-transparency policies and practices and advocating
for pro-transparency and accountability reforms in
the law and the government. And it'd be great if this
was not a one time thing, I'm hopeful that this lawsuit will create real and lasting change, or at least be able to
disseminate important information related to the heart of our democracy. But it would also be great to be able to right other injustices and to be able to uphold the
rule of law in other contexts. So I'm hopeful that this
won't be a one off thing and that Legal Eagle can create some law, not just explain it. So to you Legal Eagles, I
thank you for your support. And until next time,
I'll see you in court. This time literally.
If some assholes in the right are alt right enablers, I think is fair to say Legal Eagle is a breadtube enabler lol. (Obviously is not a fair comparison because one group is composed of horrible people, but it's nice that the left has a more robust pipeline everyday).
Wait, LegalEagle is part of Breadtube?
based department?
He has been in Vaush's chat a few times
He sure comes across as a lawyer in the intro.
Wait, where is the heart of our democracy? It must be hidden pretty well, I don't see it.
He is serious! He didn't even say, "Like, subscribe, and ring the bell."
He's suing, because he believes his inquiry under Freedom of Information Act was inappropriately denied by the USA government. Journalists are doing it all the time, this isn't a big deal at all.
HELLYEAH! LegalEagle!